Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/240

 common to the modern school, but some well-executed examples may be found. Mokubei generally marked such of his pieces as were not intended to be exact imitations of foreign models. His cachet will be found in the Plates of Marks. Mokubei was born in 1767 and died in 1833. He did not leave any male progeny, but his daughter, Rai, attained considerable celebrity as a manufacturer of archaic pottery, at the beginning of the present century. It may be added that collectors are often imposed upon by elaborately decorated specimens—generally bowls—which curio-dealers confidently ascribe to Mokubei, but which are, in truth, clever examples of modern manufacture.

A celebrated potter of Gojō-zaka was Ogata Kichisaburo, whose artist name was Shūhei. He flourished during the latter part of the eighteenth century, and was therefore a contemporary of Mokubei. It has been asserted that to Shūhei belongs the credit of first applying to Kyōtō porcelain a species of decoration the origin of which is otherwise attributed to the Chinese potters of the Yung-lo era (1403–1424). There is no evidence of this except the fact that Shūhei affected this style of decoration more than any other. The outer surface of the piece was completely covered with red glaze, and to this, as a ground, designs in gold, or, more rarely, coloured enamels, were applied. Shūhei's red was of somewhat dark, impure character, not by any means comparable with the beautiful coral colour produced by his immediate successor, Eiraku Zengoro, who will be presently spoken of. But in the employment of coloured enamels he yields the palm to no keramist of Kyōtō. In this branch of the art he stands upon the highest